Inside December’s Mentor Connect: Product, AI & CX in Practice with Bala Kasiviswanathan
TiE Silicon Valley closed out the year with a high-impact December Mentor Connect session featuring Bala Kasiviswanathan, Executive Advisor for Product, AI, and Customer Experience, and former Chief Product Officer at Simpplr and Tidal | X (formerly Google X), as well as Director of Product Management at Google Cloud.
Six founders joined Bala for focused 1:1 conversations centered on product strategy, AI-driven innovation, and building customer experiences that scale beyond early traction. Across the sessions, founders explored how to sharpen product vision, validate 0→1 and 1→N roadmaps, strengthen product-market fit loops, and better align product, engineering, and go-to-market teams around clear outcomes.
Bala brought a rare blend of big-tech rigor and startup pragmatism, helping founders pressure-test assumptions, simplify complex product decisions, and prioritize what truly moves the business forward. The discussions were candid, tactical, and deeply grounded in real operating experience.
By the end of the session, each founder walked away with clearer direction, concrete next steps, and renewed confidence in how to build products that customers actually adopt and love.
Mentor Connect continues to deliver what founders value most: direct access, honest feedback, and practical guidance from leaders who’ve built and scaled products at the highest level.
Stay tuned for upcoming Mentor Connect sessions in the new year.
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